


International Waters

by gnimmish



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-13
Updated: 2018-11-13
Packaged: 2019-08-23 07:25:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16614503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gnimmish/pseuds/gnimmish
Summary: “Sex,” Queenie prompts, “what’s it like?”Jacob is suddenly a lot more awake than he was a second ago. “What?”Queenie and Jacob talk soup, sex and sea sickness on the steamer on their way to England. This is the fluffy, smutty, fun version of Queenie and Jacob eloping, since I suspect COG is about to give us the sad angsty version...





	International Waters

They’re in steerage. And Jacob feels more like he’s in the belly of some great metal whale than he does the lowest class of cabin on a trans-Atlantic steamer.

He’s been laying on the floor in his pyjamas trying really, really hard not to puke for like an hour, when Queenie comes in with supper. She picks her way over his prone form – he is, admittedly, taking up most of the floor space – and kicks off her shoes.

“I thought you might want some soup,” she offers, softly, setting the bowl down on the suitcase they’ve been using as a coffee table the last day or so. The only other furniture in here’s the bunk and the little wash stand.

Still, at least they have a cabin – he still has vivid, nightmarish memories of travelling steerage as a boy, coming over from Poland. There’d been no cabins then, just an open hall, cavernous and dark, Jacob, his brother and their mother all crammed onto one straw mattress, his Pa on the floor next to them, the rows of sleeping bodies in the shadows, the stink of the open latrine, the fist fights over bread, the screaming baby that never quieted the whole seven days it took to make the crossing.

Compared to that, their little cupboard of a room seems pretty luxurious. It’s humble, but it’s cosy enough. They’ve got an electric lamp, a sink and cabinet over it, bunks with proper pillows and clean, dry linens: a little privacy, a little comfort – and each other.

If Jacob could just stop feeling quite so nauseous, he wouldn’t mind it at all, actually.

“Oh honey, you’re no better,” Queenie sighs, kneeling by his side and placing a blessedly cool palm on his forehead. “I wish you’d let me do something for you.”

By ‘something’ she means magic, and Jacob shakes his head, firmly. “No. No, I’m okay.”

They both agreed Queenie shouldn’t risk doing anything that could give them away until they reach England, just to be safe. And he’s got a little too much pride to ask her to put herself out just ‘cause he’s sea sick. What kinda husband’s he gonna make if he can’t tolerate a little nausea without her help?

“You’ve barely eaten all day,” Queenie is stroking his hair – it feels so good Jacob wants to cry. He loves the way she touches him – he’s never loved anything so much in his life. And she definitely heard him think that, because now she’s giggling. “You wanna put your head in my lap?”

“God yes,” Jacob sighs – and Queenie obliges, sliding into a sitting position, and lifting Jacob’s head until it rests on her thighs.

“Good?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Jacob closes his eyes, inhaling the scent of that vanilla lotion she’s always using. “I love you so much, you know that?”

“Yes, you think about it all the time,” Queenie pets him affectionately, “I love you too, honey.”

She knits the fingers of one hand through his, using the other to go back to stroking the curls off his forehead. A moment later she leans down to kiss him, and Jacob feels something in him un-tense for the first time in hours. Goddamn, she’s so good for him.

“You’re a miracle, Queenie Goldstein,” Jacob tells her, not opening his eyes. “You’re my miracle.”

“Mm-mn, no,” Queenie murmurs, still cradling his face in her hands, “you’re mine, honey.”

He kisses her again, before he can stop himself.

After she’s coaxed him into eating his soup, she begins to get ready for bed. He keeps his gaze politely averted. They haven’t been together yet in that particular way and he’s determined to be respectful about it, even in the close confines of their cabin, even if it’s nothing he ain’t gonna see for himself soon. They won’t be married for a week or so yet, after all, and he wouldn’t want to make her uncomfortable, though she doesn’t appear to be anything of the sort.

“Jacob,” Queenie’s on her side in their little bunk, watching him over the top of her book – he’s still on the floor. The firm metal under his back helps him feel steadier. “Can I ask you something?”

“Whatever you want,” Jacob glances up at her. She’s being a little unusually coy, biting her lip, avoiding his gaze.

“I know – cause I hear you think about it, sometimes – that you – back when you was in the army you…” she closes her book and puts it aside. “You stepped out with a girl or two…”

Ah. Okay. He was wondering when this might come up. Not that they’ve ever talked about it before but he kinda figured she’d have caught on to some of his past by now.

He props himself up on his elbows to he can meet her eyes. “Honey, you got nothing to worry about, okay? Nothing I ever felt for any woman before compares to how I feel about you. You have to know that, right?”

 “N-no,” Queenie bites at her lip, suppressing a small, self-conscious smile –is she – blushing? Jeez, he’s never actually seen her bashful before. “Um, I mean, I know that – about how you feel – it’s just… I know you’ve had sexual relations before so – ”

“Oh,” Jacob blinks – because of course, why wouldn’t she know about that kind of thing? Somehow he’d thought maybe, maybe he could keep all that off to one side, though. It hadn’t felt… quite decent. To have those thoughts around her.

“I’m sorry,” Queenie hurries on, nervous now, wringing her fingers together, “I didn’t mean to see it, it just drifts across your mind sometimes like it does almost everyone and I can’t help – ”

“I know,” Jacob holds up a hand, gently, “I know, I’m not mad.”

Queenie bites her lip, meeting his gaze for a moment, her cheeks still flushed. “It’s just – I haven’t. Had sexual relations. With anyone. Not that I think there’s anything wrong with – I’m a modern girl, I woulda if maybe I wasn’t so – well, when you can hear the way some men think about it, or think about a girl like me, sorta takes the shine off the whole idea, y’know?”

Jacob nods, slowly.

“And I never liked a guy so much as you,” Queenie goes on, quietly. “But now we’re gonna be married and I know how you think about me, Jacob, and I’m just warning you, I might not be able to – live up to all that.”

“Oh,” Jacob sits up, “oh, honey, are you seriously worried you’re gonna disappoint me?”

“Well I might,” Queenie tells him, with an unbearably anxious little smile.

“No,” Jacob assures her, “no, you won’t. You couldn’t possibly.”

Her smile grows less anxious. She reaches down from the bunk to stroke his temple – he catches her hand between both of his and kisses her knuckles, before sitting up, deciding to scramble into bed beside her.

Like all the third class cabins, they have two narrow bunks, stacked one on top of the other. The first night, Jacob, being gentlemanly, had offered to let her pick which she wanted, and she had taken the top, sighting her sister’s tendency to make her take the bottom bunk when they were children. But sometime in the night, he’d woken to her reaching down to touch his arm.

“I’m cold,” her voice was honey-soft in the dark, “can I come snuggle with you?”

“Y-yeah, sure,” Jacob had managed, barely getting the words out before she’d hopped nimbly to the floor and slid into the bunk in a single fluid movement – the heat of her skin through the silk of her nightgown and the scent of her hair and the weight of her body on his chest had enveloped him, turned his brain to mush. There was barely room for the both of them, and he absolutely didn’t care.

She’d kissed him, running a delicate hand down his front, slipping it into his unbutton pyjamas shirt to rest her palm over his thundering heart, burying her little nose his neck, her eyelashes brushing his cheek, her cold toes curling against his ankles.

“G’night, honey,” she’d whispered, and he hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep the whole damn night because he couldn’t get enough of how she felt in his arms.

It’s been two nights now, sleeping crushed together in the bottom bunk – he’s only a little bit better acclimatised to being in such close proximity to her in a negligée. But he’s not complaining.

Queenie slides into the space between him and the wall next to the bunk, throwing one leg over his knees and an arm over his chest. She’s in the eggshell blue slip tonight – the one with the delicate lace lilac blossoms around the hem and the neckline. He thinks his favourite is still probably the pink one, but this one’s a pretty close second.

“You know you probably wouldn’t be so cold if you ever wore a sensible pair of pyjamas,” he tells her, drawing the covers up over them both as she nuzzles against his jaw.

“You complaining, honey?”

“Nope,” he grins at her, and she giggles, running a finger around the shell of his ear in a way that makes his face grow hot. And gee, she thinks she could disappoint him? When all she has to do is touch his damn ear and he’s blushing like a school boy?

He reaches out to turn out the light, leaving them illuminated only by the dim light coming in under the door from the quiet hallway beyond their cabin.

+++

“So,” Queenie is stroking his jaw with her thumb, “what’s it like?”

“What?” Jacob glances at her, sinking comfortably into the mattress – the slow rock of the ship on the ocean has finally become comforting rather than nauseating, and their cabin is dark and the sheets are soft and Queenie is warm and real in his arms. He’s happy on a bone-deep, soul-soothing sort of a level right now.

“Sex,” Queenie prompts, “what’s it like?”

Jacob is suddenly a lot more awake than he was a second ago. “What?”

“I wanna know,” Queenie squirms onto her front, propping her chin on her hands to gaze down at him impishly, “and what, you think I’m gonna hear about that stuff from Tina?”

“Oh god,” Jacob clamps a hand over his eyes.

“Honey, we’re gonna be married, we gotta be able to talk about this stuff.”

“You can’t just – pick that stuff out of my head?”

“That’s no fun!” Queenie prods him, “I can pick out what you’re thinking about, I can’t know how it – _felt_.”

“Oh, well, if you wanna know how it felt,” Jacob grins at her, “there’s more fun ways to work that out than talking about it, y’know.”

Queenie giggles, “I know. But I wanna talk about it first.”

“Okay,” Jacob sighs, smoothing a hand down her back – God he adores this woman, and if she wants to cuddle and talk about sex then sure, he’s game, but he’s not sure he has anything to tell her that isn’t just gonna sound… dumb. And weird. “Look, if you’ve been in my head, you know my first time wasn’t – spectacular, right?”

“She was nice though,” Queenie is stroking her hair, “what was her name?”

“Katarina,” Jacob feels a sting of embarrassment at the memory, “sweet girl. Deserved a lot better than me.”

“She liked you well enough,” Queenie says, softly, “oh – but she died. Oh poor thing, so young.”

“Yeah,” Jacob is trying really hard not to picture it – he doesn’t want Queenie to have to see poor, pretty Katarina with her face bloated and her neck swollen up, her mouth full of sores, “diphtheria. Horrible business. And I wasn’t – I didn’t deal with it well. At the end. I didn’t go see her properly or nothin’. Never even went to her funeral to pay my respects. Dumb coward.”

“You were seventeen,” Queenie points out, “you were ashamed. But I think you made her happy for a little while.”

Jacob shakes his head – he’s not sure about that. He’d been a cocky kid who’d gotten lucky with a nice girl who’d let him fumble around with her behind her daddy’s cobbling shop, that was all. He’d spent a couple of weeks bringing her fresh baked jam tarts and trying to make her laugh, and when she’d kissed him and rubbed herself up against him in all sorts of interesting ways it’d felt good and she’d seemed to like him – and the… rubbing – a lot. 

He knew what he was meant to do with girls – he had an older brother, and guys at the canning factory talked a big game about all the girls they supposedly had relations with, after all – but when it’d happened with Katarina it had all been sort of rushed and awkward and embarrassing. Like, it’d felt good for about half a minute, but the rest had just been him feeling around under her skirts until she got impatient and did it for him and then he’d had to run home before her parents caught them.

Not, as these things go, an especially glamorous or romantic sort of an encounter. He’d expected to feel different after – a real man, his brother had said he’d be. But he didn’t feel real, or manly. He’d just felt a little lonely. And sticky. Hadn’t been able to bring himself to go past her dad’s shop again for a month – and then she’d gotten sick.

He’d brought her jam tarts, when he heard. But by the time he brought them by, her throat was so swollen it was closing up, and she’d been in bed staring at the ceiling like she wasn’t really there anymore, her breath this horrible gurgling whine in her throat, while her sisters tried to help her take a sip of water and her poor ma wept over her rosary beads in the corner. Jacob had put the tarts down on her dresser, and fled.

“Oh, Jacob,” Queenie sighs, still stroking his hair, and Jacob isn’t sure he can stand her being nice to him about it.

“Yeah well,” he mutters, “like I said – not spectacular.”

Queenie is quiet for a moment – he thinks he can feel her absorbing his thoughts – the last few months, the more she does it the more he’s sure he can tell when she’s in his head: a very light, fluttery sort of feeling in the top of his skull. It’s kinda nice. 

“There were other times though, right?” She asks, quietly, and Jacob nods.

Other times. Elsie, one of the factory girls who’d felt sorry that he was alone the night before he’d shipped out. Coralie, the farmer’s daughter in France who’d been a pretty distraction in an ugly war – he hadn’t cared especially that she was finding her way into the beds of half a dozen other American soldiers, as long as she was nice to him. Then the prostitute in that tiny town he’d been in the night  he’d been told his brother was dead, pieces of him scattered across the Somme alongside half his unit. Jacob doesn’t remember her name, just that he was drunk and desperate for something, anything, that didn’t feel like death. He’s not sure she even counts. He’d lost his erection half way through, couldn’t get it back, had fled the room to throw up and cry behind that godforsaken brothel.

He hadn’t done anything with any girl for a long, long time after that.

“Thing is,” he looks at Queenie, taking in the shape of her pale face in the dimness of their cabin, “sex is like – it gets held up like this trophy by guys, you know? You musta seen how some of ‘em think about it.”

“More than I ever wanted to,” Queenie shudders, delicately, and Jacob squeezes her hand where it rests over his heart.

“Practically every guy I ever knew talks like it matters so much that it’s basically the only thing that matters – ‘cept maybe how much money you got,” he goes on, slowly, letting himself think over the words before he speaks them, “and I used to believe them, I guess. Like, you have sexual relations with a girl and somehow that makes you more of a person – and her less of one. Like that’s the point. And… I dunno. I never liked that idea. That never felt right – but I’d go along and try to see a girl or two and undress her if she’d let me because if you didn’t you’d get looked at like there was something wrong with you. But the only time it ever really meant anything was with…”

“Mildred.”

“Mildred.” He nods.

She’d been nervy and prickly but sweet, in her own way – the only nice thing about his first few months at the cannery. He’s not sure, now, if he ever actually loved her – if really what he was looking for wasn’t just someone who’d make him feel less alone in the world (and ultimately she’d never done a great job at that either).

But he’d thought they could make each other happy, and for at least a little while she must have felt the same way. She’d offered to have sex with him after he’d proposed – just to see how they’d like each other, she said – and it had turned out they’d liked each other just fine. It’d been good – lovely, kinda. She’d been very prim about it but she’d seemed to enjoy herself plenty, and he’d liked the pretty freckles on her belly and the fullness of her breasts and her thighs and the heat of their joined bodies.

It had been nice. Real nice. Just for a little while. Till it turned out that ‘nice’ wasn’t quite enough to paper over the crushing exhaustion of cannery life and poverty and boredom and nightmares filled with his brother’s body parts and the steady drain of hope that he’d ever be anything he’d wanted to be.

Things are different now, of course. He’s pretty sure that won’t happen with Queenie. (He prays to God it won’t happen with Queenie).

“It won’t,” Queenie says, her voice startling him, soft and warm and earnest against his ear. “I won’t ever stop loving you, Jacob. I promise.”

“You can’t know that,” he replies, wrapping his arms around her tight.

“Yeah I can.” She kisses him, feeling for his mouth in the dark and he kisses her back, running his hands down her back as the tip of her tongue brushes his top lip ( _Jesus Christ_ ). Sometimes, when it’s like this, when it’s just them all cuddled up somewhere private, he feels like he’s nothing but love for her – not himself anymore, not a baker, not a soldier, not a factory worker – just Queenie’s, just everything he adores about her. He wouldn’t mind it being true forever.

“Does it feel good, though?” Queenie asks, after a moment, “sex?”

“I – I mean, yeah – with the right person,” Jacob manages a wry smile. “And the stuff before feels – good, too.”

“Like what?”

“Aw, jeez, Queenie,” Jacob squeezes his eyes closed, not at all sure how to say such things to her. He can feel her eyelashes against his temple – he can feel her breath, he can smell her soap and her hair. She’s real and vital and perfect and for some reason she loves him. He doesn’t want to drag the ghosts of his past into this bed with her.

“Well,” Queenie taps him on the nose to get him to look at her. “What do you imagine will feel good with me?”

He blinks – he can see her smiling, slow and sweet and just a little shy and god. God. He doesn’t know where to start.

“Everything,” he tells her, honestly, and he thinks she’s blushing, pressing her face to his neck.

“You wanna show me?” She asks, very quietly, not lifting her face, but running a finger up to his temple, so that he understands what she means.

Jacob’s whole body feels hot and prickly. He’s spent months actively trying not to have these thoughts around her – trying not to be indecent, not to inadvertently show her something that will repulse her or scare her or just make her uncomfortable.

But he knows what’s going to come to the surface of his mind first – unbidden – the idea he nursed most frequently when he was alone in his little apartment without her, late at night, bringing himself off where he could be safe in the knowledge he wouldn’t scandalise her. It was a sequence of thought that had begun to bloom during long days  at the bakery, stealing glances at her over the counter or in the heat of the back rooms by the ovens, amongst clouds of flour and powdered sugar, looking like a damn dream as she rolled out pastry and decorated cakes.

She’d always push her sleeves up to her elbows while she worked, her forearms lean and steady, the flush of her efforts rising in her cheeks over the course of the day, until there was sweat beginning to stick her curls to her forehead. There was something perfect about how she’d come just a little undone.

Jacob couldn’t say when he’d first thought about what he wanted, really, desperately, looking at her like that. But it wouldn’t leave him alone – the idea of waiting till the end of the day and pressing her back against a table, a cupboard, against the counter, against the work surface where she was kneading dough, and falling to his knees in front of her like a dying man at an altar ready to pray. He’d push her skirts up, over her knees, over her thighs (in his fantasises he’s slow and sensuous and sure of himself – in reality he has a suspicion he’d be clumsy, that his hands would shake – but he’d still do it).

He’d bury his face in the soft crux of her thighs, pull her close and kiss her there, open his mouth against heat of her sex and taste her as deeply as he could, drink her up. She’d taste like that primordial ocean that moves inside women –  the place where all life spills forth – salt slick and perfect, and like the tempered sugar in the air and the rose water on her skin. And she’d move against him and moan his name as she tangled her fingers in his hair and he’d keep going and going till she’d had as much as she wanted – till she was sated and he was hard and then she’d pull him up by his lapels and kiss him, taste herself in his mouth and –

“Oh,” Queenie’s voice, her real voice, cuts him off – breathless and soft. He can feel damp sweat seeping through her night gown, though whether it’s his or hers he has no idea. Her fingers have tangled in his hair. “ _Jacob_.”

Jacob swallows, caught between arousal and total mortification. Christ, what in the hell can she think of that?

“I wish you’d told me while we were still there,” she begins, after a moment, “I don’t think I woulda objected to – something like that.”

“Oh jeez don’t tell me that,” Jacob swallows hard, “I’ll never sleep again.”

She laughs, self-conscious but warm.

He meets her gaze, a scant half inch from his own on the pillow. “You’d really try something like that?”

“Mmhm,” she bites her lip, nods, her eyes bright, “Seems like it might be kinda fun.”

Jacob swallows again, smiles at her. “Yeah. Yeah. It’d be – more than fun.”

Then she kisses him, open mouthed and hungry, and Jacob kisses her back and loses himself to her. She’s sliding on top of him, her slip riding up her thighs, and he dares touch her there, where the hem has come up almost to her hips. She pulls his other hand up so that he’s cupping her breast and it takes everything Jacob has not to make a really undignified sound in the back of his throat because Jesus her skin is soft and hot and incredible and –

They’ve fooled around before, okay? Just a little. There’ve been a couple of goodnight kisses back in New York that got a little hot and heavy. But he’d never let it go any further than cuddling and kissing her neck a little – because she could literally be sent to prison for anything more than that and he couldn’t – absolutely couldn’t – let her risk such a thing.

Still. They’re in international waters now. And she’s unbuttoning his pyjama shirt and he has no intention of stopping her.

 


End file.
